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Great Southern Railway (Fictitious) - Signalling the changes...


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Also of course white sashes with coloured frames was quite a thing.   The paintwork on my Victorian stone house was various shades of brown (with and without light sashes) until it went dark red with ivory sashes, then all green, followed by all blue, and under my stewardship cream with blue doors and black ironwork.  It must have looked very smart in red and ivory, but I suspect that the various brown/stone shades were much more serviceable! 

Steve

Shepton

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There was some discussion on Castle Aching about wooden window paint colours.  It was felt that wood was painted in dark colours.  Others pointed out that white lead paint was used, which darkened.

 

I am sure both these assertions are correct, and evidence may be found of them, but Edwardian coloured pictures and paintings also show white window work (and white casements in dark painted frames) were evident.

 

See This post for pictures

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On 15/08/2019 at 20:46, Caley Jim said:

He claimed that half his patients worked for Austin at Longbridge 

Sadly he never received any 'reject' cars!

 

 

Sadly - fortunately? The reject standard cars had gone to the showrooms. Back in the 70s our family car was a 1300; the boot lid had a tendency to pop open when travelling at 67 mph up the M6. A few years ago there was a BBC drama series about the Birmingham pub bombings. One of the characters was a Longbridge employee; the non-shutting boot on his car was a running gag.

 

On 17/08/2019 at 00:51, Annie said:

There's no LNWR signals at all 

 

That's a pity as they are so distinctive and characterful - enough to put the stamp of the Premier Line on any scene. And of course in a virtual model railway you can safely make them 60ft high! Do the Midland signals have dot in place of stripe? (And the horizontal black stripe on the rear of distant arms.) Irrespective of manufacturer, I trust the pre-grouping distants are red, not yellow.

 

28 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

There was some discussion on Castle Aching about wooden window paint colours.  It was felt that wood was painted in dark colours.  Others pointed out that white lead paint was used, which darkened.

 

I am sure both these assertions are correct, and evidence may be found of them, but Edwardian coloured pictures and paintings also show white window work (and white casements in dark painted frames) were evident.

 

See This post for pictures

 

A snippet to add to this: in Midland Style George Dow records the standard Midland structure colours as ni66er brown and Old Denby pottery cream, window frames being cream - but I'm not convinced that necessarily means sashes were cream. This scheme was used for passenger and goods station buildings and also by the locomotive department. The signal department went its own way with lemon chrome and Venetian red but signalbox widow frames were white - the difference between the white and lemon chrome is clear in period photos.

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47 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Sadly - fortunately? The reject standard cars had gone to the showrooms. Back in the 70s our family car was a 1300; the boot lid had a tendency to pop open when travelling at 67 mph up the M6. A few years ago there was a BBC drama series about the Birmingham pub bombings. One of the characters was a Longbridge employee; the non-shutting boot on his car was a running gag.

 

 

That's a pity as they are so distinctive and characterful - enough to put the stamp of the Premier Line on any scene. And of course in a virtual model railway you can safely make them 60ft high! Do the Midland signals have dot in place of stripe? (And the horizontal black stripe on the rear of distant arms.) Irrespective of manufacturer, I trust the pre-grouping distants are red, not yellow.

 

 

A snippet to add to this: in Midland Style George Dow records the standard Midland structure colours as ni66er brown and Old Denby pottery cream, window frames being cream - but I'm not convinced that necessarily means sashes were cream. This scheme was used for passenger and goods station buildings and also by the locomotive department. The signal department went its own way with lemon chrome and Venetian red but signalbox widow frames were white - the difference between the white and lemon chrome is clear in period photos.

 

Puts me in mind of the GWR.  Prior to 1907 it used 3 "stone" colours, 1-3 running light to dark, and chocolate (especially on signal boxes)for wood-work, with white window frames.

 

 

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1907 is the key date for the GWR, as it switched to buying in ready-mixed paint from paint manufacturers.

 

It is worth noting that the manufacture of non-lead-based paints was probably quite rare prior to the coming into force of the Lead Paint (Protection Against Poisoning) Act of 1926. 

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3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That's a pity as they are so distinctive and characterful - enough to put the stamp of the Premier Line on any scene. And of course in a virtual model railway you can safely make them 60ft high! Do the Midland signals have dot in place of stripe? (And the horizontal black stripe on the rear of distant arms.) Irrespective of manufacturer, I trust the pre-grouping distants are red, not yellow.

 

Some content creators for Trainz still manage to get such details wrong, but before any distant signal is permanently placed on my layouts it's retextured red as it should be.

I have no idea why the LNWR is so ill served in Trainz.  Perhaps with gradually increasing numbers of engines and rolling stock now being made things might change, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

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On 21/08/2019 at 13:47, sem34090 said:

I think the topic of window frame colours was over in Castle Aching some months ago. Certainly when I've seen properties that have been abandoned for what would appear to be a considerable length of time, the window frames appear to have been painted in green or other darker shades.

 

I think it's also to do with what the paints were based on.

Some info on colours

https://www.terracedhouses.co.uk/index5-paint.html

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Thanks, all. Some interesting and useful info there. For the Petite Properties kits, I'll probably stick to the white frames provided, especially the more ornate ones. I've yet to find a way to neatly re-colour these. I've tried using pens and pencils but to no avail - any pigment that was left on the acetate simply wiped off when I cleaned off the clear parts. 

 

I am wondering about the possibility of scanning the windows (against a black background) and then trying to print some frames in black or dark blue/green. 

 

Speaking of dark blue/green, I made a start on the second building kit of this batch, a rather lovely shop... This after I finished applying some laser-cut roof tiles I'd made about a year ago and never used. 

 

20190822_215057.jpg.d72533ea6f2cac9bf6ba7e0b62f5b430.jpg

 

I'm especially impressed with the detail of the shop front, which is suitably "fussy", and which will require me to get my calligraphy pens and gold ink out to attempt some signwriting... 

 

20190822_215836.jpg.ae1235e4a7f8fee2b80b433d72af726f.jpg

 

I got home and managed to find my rattle can of slate grey, so gave the roof a quick coat before bed. Not looking too shabby, I think! 

 

20190822_231323.jpg.9a70aa9a37884b9e0d5bda91121c6ce2.jpg

Edited by Skinnylinny
Edited from home to include a shot of the houses with an appropriately coloured roof!
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These kits have definitely kick started my modelling mojo; the weekend before last I started doodling up some parts for a pair of LSWR 42' carriages, which I'd been meaning to produce for a while.

 

Saturday was spent visiting the layout of a club member - not a scale model at all but lots of operational fun with lots of complex trackwork. Several of us were occupied for many hours setting up and solving shunting challenges, while other trains ran around the main ovals. 

 

20190824_194429.jpg.2ca71c509af6d75aeb61d501d7e29b0b.jpg69223990_10156357777117793_8645220282912473088_n.jpg.3338829b6f5bb765e6a95b063515edd5.jpg

 

 

 

This combined with a couple of serendipitous events at work gave me the boost I needed to get the body of the first carriage, a full third, drawn up and cut on Sunday afternoon. 

 

20190825_235322.jpg.d4ed71c1d95fb7dedbda79c568054235.jpg

 

I've not added end details yet, as I struggled to get the spindly beading to cut properly. Next one to be tackled will be a brake third, then some sort of composite. I do have rather a soft spot for the LSWR tricomposites... 

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Things have been fairly quiet on the modelling front recently, but I have managed to get one side of the above LSWR 42' third painted, and have mostly worked out the bits I'll need for the matching brake third. I'm trying to decide on what I want in a train. I think that's all the third-class I need, but what sorts of proportions of 1st-2nd-3rd would be appropriate for an LSWR train in this time period (1900-1910)? Should I be going for a 1st/2nd composite, or a tricompo? Have I already overdone it with 3rd class compartments? I'm assuming I'll want at least a 4-wheeled luggage van, and there's a nice 1881 46' 1st/2nd composite (4x First, 3x Second compartments), or a 28' 6-wheeler 1/2 compo (2 compartments each). So many choices, and it seems like the LSWR liked a nice healthy mixture of coach types in a train.

877055728_LSWR42Coaches.png.40b1258ac88cd8e6ff65eab1edbfb349.png

I know the LBSC set that I'll be using (one of the set trains for the Cranleigh line - Set Train 42) had 10 3rd class compartments, 4 first and 4 second, plus two 6-wheel brakes. I've yet to work out what the SECR train (if one appears) will look like. It would be on the SER section, but I don't know.

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That is helpful, thank you. So roughly twice as much 3rd as 1st accommodation, and slightly less 2nd than first? This sounds it should be possible. So with the 12 3rd compartments I have at the moment, 5-6 first and 4-5 second compartments should do it... Sounds like two four- or six-wheelers should do it.

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14 hours ago, Skinnylinny said:

Should I be going for a 1st/2nd composite, or a tricompo? 

 

From a purely theoretical standpoint and with no detailed knowledge of LSWR carriage working*, I'd have thought that in a "suburban" train, a first/second composite would be more likely than a tricomposite, the latter being more favoured as a single carriage for through workings. But from reading the Roxey website, I gather the LSWR had first/third and second/third composites too. 

 

For comparison with other lines, the LNWR, which also persisted with second class for far too long, built large numbers of 50ft carriages around the turn of the century, mostly formed in fixed sets for particular services. For the Birmingham New Street - Sutton Coldfield trains, there were seven-carriage sets with every carriage different: brake third / third / first/third composite / first / first/second composite / second / brake second. That gives 15 first, 16 second and 17 third class compartments. In more-or-less direct competition with this, the sets of 48ft carriages built on 1907/8 for the New Street - Walsall services of the Midland, via the Sutton Park line, were made up brake third / first / third / brake third - 7 firsts and 20 thirds - or brake third / third / first / first / third / brake third - 14 firsts and 28 thirds. Rather similar proportions, indicating that in the absence of second class, passengers chose third rather than first class. 

 

*I would like to know the make-up of LSWR Waterloo-Reading trains around the turn of the century, I became very familiar with the eight-carriage sets in use a century later!

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Well, I have found a photograph in G R Weddell's LSWR Carriages Volume One: 1838-1900 which seems to show the following rake:

 

30' 6-wheeled brake

42' bogie third

42'6" bogie tricompo

42' bogie third

6 wheel brake (indistinct)

 

Sadly there's no date for the photo, but it gives an idea of how variable the class makeup of such trains could be. Rather than having a one-size-fits-all LSWR passenger train, it looks like I'll need to consider the expected clientele for any given train. Thus the early morning express to London might be better served for first and second class, with newer, bogie coaches, while the local stopping services to Ascot, Brookwood and Guildford might lean more third-heavy with older, four and six wheel stock. 

 

Who'd have thought running a railway could be so complicated? 

 

20190911_081454.jpg.7a1752e52ad7914ee6d7363055818c00.jpg20190911_074524.jpg.0f34da60d197b84bf7fecfa4bd96648d.jpg

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Thanks, Jack. The bright metal ones were from the bits box at my local model shop. The black ones are, I think, Alan Gibson 14mm ones from H & A Models (no connection, satisfied customer, etc), from where you can also get 12mm Mansell wheels. 

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2 hours ago, Jack P said:

Fantastic modelling going on here. Where did you get the Maunsell pattern wheels please Linny?

 

Mansells.

 

2 options I've used:

 

- The aforementioned Alan Gibson 14mm Mansells

 

- Finding I had some surplus Bachmann and Hornby disc coach wheels, I stuck MJT/Dart Castings white-metal Mansell inserts - worked really well.  If you are back-dating a coach or otherwise already have coach wheels, this is a great way to go. 

 

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10 hours ago, Skinnylinny said:

Well, I have found a photograph in G R Weddell's LSWR Carriages Volume One: 1838-1900 which seems to show the following rake:

 

30' 6-wheeled brake

42' bogie third

42'6" bogie tricompo

42' bogie third

6 wheel brake (indistinct)

 

Sadly there's no date for the photo, but it gives an idea of how variable the class makeup of such trains could be. Rather than having a one-size-fits-all LSWR passenger train, it looks like I'll need to consider the expected clientele for any given train. Thus the early morning express to London might be better served for first and second class, with newer, bogie coaches, while the local stopping services to Ascot, Brookwood and Guildford might lean more third-heavy with older, four and six wheel stock. 

 

Who'd have thought running a railway could be so complicated? 

 

20190911_081454.jpg.7a1752e52ad7914ee6d7363055818c00.jpg20190911_074524.jpg.0f34da60d197b84bf7fecfa4bd96648d.jpg

I was going to suggest looking in Weddell - I've only got volume 2, which is where the block set info came from.

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11 hours ago, Skinnylinny said:

Well, I have found a photograph in G R Weddell's LSWR Carriages Volume One: 1838-1900 which seems to show the following rake:

 

30' 6-wheeled brake

42' bogie third

42'6" bogie tricompo

42' bogie third

6 wheel brake (indistinct)

 

 

That strikes me as a very low proportion of first and second compartments for such an affluent area - considering the 1:1:1 split (or 1:2 in the absence of second) on the Birmingham suburban services I mentioned - Sutton Coldfield considers itself posh now (and did then) but it's not Virginia Water.

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I was surprised too! There is the possibility that the photo shows ECS being stored, rather than a revenue earning train. I'm probably going to lean a little heavier towards the 1st/2nd end with a tricompo and a 1/2 compo six wheeler, to give :

 

14 3rd compartments

4 2nd compartments

5 1st compartments

 

Unless I ditch the full third, but... Hmmmm... 

I need to keep in mind my platform lengths too, which are intended to just hold three 60 footers. 

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